Drape Drape Disaster and Rescue

Here’s the result of my first attempt at one of the popular Drape Drape Japanese patterns as modeled by DD1: No.4 Asymmetrical Top. I mentioned it in my last post, only because I was so annoyed that I’m not Japanese-sized. More like 6XL Japanese sized. However, I put my big girl pants on and got to solving how I could make this one-piece pattern work for me. I needed to find 10 inches – read it – that’s a big one zero – in extra width.

Isn’t the draping on this just gorgeous? DD1 is a very dancer-fit hourglass, and the pattern looks so amazing on her. This is the size L/XL on her, btw, because she’s a L in the Drape Drape world. Anyways, I got a brainstorm and sliced the pattern clean down the middle and spread it three inches. I have no pics of it, but it added width to the right sleeve and really nice drapey side as seen above. Then I added three inches of width on either edge of the pattern piece (left underarm seam) and graded it back to 1/2″ of extra width at the sleeve edge. And I cut the neckline three inches higher than drafted. Here’s the result:

I made the mom-sized version from some stashed linen jersey that came to me via EmmaOneSock about a year ago. I really wanted to try the loose tee shape, and this jersey is soooo delicious to wear. It’s a bit finicky to work with – something like fussy silk – but the extra care is so worth the end result.

Looks good! I have to tell you, when I first tried on the orange sherbet version, it was t.i.g.h.t. No drape whatsoever – more along the lines of Spanx. Now, it’s me-sized, and the drape is just as sweet as the daughter-sized version.

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14 thoughts on “Drape Drape Disaster and Rescue”

Both pieces are lovely! You are a godsend, I am making this top and have just now finished transferring the pattern to paper. I was deliberating over how to extrapolate this to a plus size fitting, and you’ve solved my dilemma. Many thanks!

Thank you! And I’m sorry about the pics not loading. I link to my photos in Flickr instead of loading them directly into WordPress, which may be part of the problem…. I wonder? Do all my photos not load well in Feedly or just this post? I’m curious!

I borrowed the books from my public library. They have great sewing resources, and I can renew them up to 3 times for a total of 9 weeks. Mind you, some scumbag sewist stole the patterns from the Drape Drape book, but I didn’t want to make anything out of it anyways.